Christmas at Crail

Today we took delivery of our new fairway mower and semi-rough mower. with the weather being mild for this time of year we have been out cutting the harder growing fairways and semi-roughs, cutting and cleaning the burn plus trying to finish off any painting before the start of the season

It's the last week of the alternate course winter closures, so we have been taking this opportunity to paint the railway sleeper bunker at hole 14, divot landing areas and re shape/move the 9th fairway/semi-rough 5 yards to the right to allow us to grow more rough down the left side which gives us more distance between holes 9 and 10 for safety, another job we completed was to verti-cut,cut and trim irrigation sprinkler heads on the tees

A light top-dressing to the Balcomie course greens & surrounds and rubbed in after we had cut and turf ironed them

 At the end of last season we started to get issues with Borehole number 1,so today we had a pump specialist in to bring pump up to investigate issue

 On the Balcomie course we are solid tining greens to a depth of 65mm

10th fairway bunker surround on the Balcomie course is being re-turfed

 This week I attended a workshop on machine maintenance etc at our local John Deere dealership, Double A

 This is the last week of winter closures for the Craighead course, so our plans have been to edge/weed then top-up all the bunkers with sand

 The newly built 17th greenside bunker being filled and shaped with sand

As it was dry and windy today it was a fine chance to top-dress the drainage lines on hole 4

 After solid tining and mini hollow coring we then top-dressed greens and surrounds which did take longer than planned with the adverse weather this week but all completed for the weekend

 Work is nearing completion at the first tee path area on the Craighead course

All the mini cores that were taken out of the greens have been spread over the new drainage line next to green 6 to help aid recovery to the surface, work to this drainage line i.e stone picking etc will take place in the next few weeks before the start of the season

We completed work to the 5th tee path on the Balcomie course all we need to do is put ball washer back out. On the Craighead course we are starting work/repairs to 1st tee path as it has been dug up for a new sewage pipe etc for a new house next to the course. We have started to solid tine, mini-core, verti-cut and cut the Craighead greens to try and reduce the thatch levels